


words (to say to you)

by sammyspreadyourwings



Series: These Things I Cannot Say [1]
Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Early Queen, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Flashbacks, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Hospitalization, Hurt/Comfort, Illnesses, M/M, Multi, Platonic Soulmates, Pre-Relationship, Romantic Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, You can read it platonic romantic poly or paired
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-15 19:52:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18079859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sammyspreadyourwings/pseuds/sammyspreadyourwings
Summary: Brian can't tell his soulmates that they're soulmates. Brian also thinks he's dying.





	words (to say to you)

**Author's Note:**

> Some of you know what this is about if you follow my blog. Others of you. I'm sorry in advance. Hopefully, I can spin a series with this. At least three or four entries.

Brian knows people can tell when they’re about to die. He saw it with his own grandfather, asking him to find a nurse to order strawberry Jell-O and then passing away while he was out of the room. That day it gave Brian an awareness of mortality, more so than the bee he sprayed with bug spray and an unconditional hatred of strawberry Jell-O.

That’s why he’s unsurprised when the epiphany falls into his head when the doctor’s eyes creased in concern when he said he wasn’t feeling any pain. None tangible at least. His heart ached with every tear from his band that falls, and the side of his chest burned with forbidden knowledge.

There’s a disconnect from his body, as though he’s in too much pain to recognize how much pain he’s in. He’s not sad, not like he would be if it were someone else on the bed. It might be a relief constant sick and smell. He doesn’t feel like himself, and he thinks that’s how people know.

He’s going to die.

A sentence constructed of five words, six if you count the contraction as two separate words. Small and damning, just like the names etched on his ribs.

He has a tainted secret resting on his lips and his own body’s poison in his blood.

* * *

Brian May is born on July 19th a Bearer. A singular golden name nestles between his 4th and 5th ribs.

The nurses tell his parents to cover it with gauze and to never look at it.

 _“I’ve heard of parents that peaked, and their babes just stopped breathing the next day!”_ One nurse will whisper to another.

 _“Shame about the May boy. He’s going have an extraordinarily sad life,”_ says the man who delivered him.

He carries a burden greater than that of Bearers, he always said. After all, he’s the one that tells the parents he saw a name.

Brian learns to read when he is four. The words in gold feel clumsy between his teeth like he can’t pronounce the syllables with the elegance demanded of them. They don’t sit right in his head either, like when Mrs. Russel plays the organ slower than the choir boys singing.

He knows the name in red, and he knows he wasn’t born with it; in the same way, he knows he was born with ten fingers and ten toes. A very bland pronunciation hidden in those six syllables. The strokes creating the letter are precise but harsh. It burrows in the space between his second and third rib.

 _“Mum,”_ he asks later that day after mastering the middle part of his first name, _“why did I get a new name?”_

His mom drops the dish on the counter, and shards scatter on the title. Brian remains still because he was always told not to move around broken glass.

_“Brian Harold, you do not talk of such things to others.”_

He drops the question and holds the dustpan for his mother.

 _“He has two names, Harold, two!”_ He listens to his mom shout at his dad.

_“What can we do Ruth? Those names will always be his burden. All we can pray is that he never meets his soulmates.”_

Brian spends the next day looking up the word soulmate and finds that he would very much like to meet them. It sounds like a very good friend.

In August, it feels like water is running down his chest. Brian runs to the mirror in the bathroom and lifts his shirt. Now resting between his 6th and 7th rib is a new name. He spends the rest of the day deciphering the sounds of the name.

This one has two first names. He knows boys with both of those names in his daycare. There’s a tide of questions in his head that he wants to ask, but his mom’s harsh reprimand reminds him that this supposed to be a secret.

Like a soulmate is a dirty thing.

The door handle wiggles and he barely has time to lower his shirt before his father is stepping into the bathroom.

_“I found him, Ruth! What did we tell you about running off without telling anyone?”_

_“Not to?”_ Brian says sheepishly, fiddling with the hem.

His father goes cross when he notices the action, Brian thinks it’s the only time he’s seen his father mad, _“don’t worry yourself over those names, boy, all they’ll bring is distraction and ruin. Soulmates are. Soulmates are painful things.”_

Brian tilts his head.

 _“Remember the baby bird we found in the bush,”_ at Brian’s nod his father continues, _“soulmates are like that, you can admire from afar, but to touch one, it risks the home of the baby bird and your own safety.”_

_“I don’t understand.”_

_“Don’t go looking for that baby bird, son. It’ll only hurt you and may ruin your soulmate. If you do meet them, you can’t tell them, it brings bad luck.”_

* * *

“What are you talking about a baby bird for Bri?”

**Red.**

Brian looks over and sees Roger Taylor, in all his exhausted simple beauty holding his hand over the rails. He must’ve drifted off with a wave of fever, he squeezes the hand. Roger’s mouth turns into a smile.

“Are you back with us?”

Brian nods but closes his eyes. Something presses against his cheek and he opens them again.

“Stay awake for a minute,” Roger says softly, “I miss you.”

He’s always liked Roger’s voice. Soft and melodic, so different from the harsh strokes or rolling rhythms he creates.

“I’ve been next to you all day.”

Roger smiles, “I suppose you have, but I haven’t had much time to talk with you. Tell me about the baby bird?”

Brian looks away, “my father always told me not to touch them. We found an injured one when I was a kid.”

“So, you rushed to help it?” Roger guesses with some fondness.

His blinks grow longer, and his voice wavers.

“Of course, you could tell it had a broken wing. But my father told me to not go near it because it might be carrying disease or I would scare away its mum.”

Roger squeezes his hand.

“I didn’t listen,” Brian sighs, “I put it into a shoebox while my parents weren’t looking, and then begged my grandma to drive me to the vet.”

“The bird was very lucky to have you care about it.”

They’ve gotten very good about talking around things. Maybe Roger really was talking about the bird. Maybe he was talking about the bird. His brain is getting fever-muddled again.

Roger raises his hand to parted lips. Brian nearly thinks he imagines the feeling of soft skin brushing his dry palm. Things are swimming again, and going out of focus, and for a second the taint nearly slips through closed teeth.

He wants to tell them. If this is his final chance. Except, it might be playing more into the idea that these things must be kept secret. Brian knows he couldn’t bear it if the others took him telling them and his passing away as proof and resentment.

Roger, who feels everything sharper than the others, would kneel under the burden. Brian’s spent five years doing everything to keep Roger happy, and so he won’t let it past his lips now.

* * *

_“The history of soulmates has been recorded since written word began,”_ Mrs. Humphreys said in her most famous teacher voice, _“they have been written about in literature just as frequently, from Shakespeare’s Cleopatra to Othello. From Poe’s The Raven.”_

Brian is sixteen the first time they talk about soul marks and bearers in class. Statistically half of the population were bearers, and someone in the government had the wonderful idea of pounding into their heads that bearers were bringers of misfortune.

 _“Why are they all bad?”_ A girl named Barbara asks, _“everyone makes Bearers out to be the bad guys.”_

_“Excellent question, Ms. Smith, can anyone tell me why?”_

Richard, who plays a striker on the football team raises his hand, _“because Lillith damned them to bear bad luck when she spoke her name to Adam.”_

_“That is the biblical answer yes, but can anyone give the historic answer?”_

Daniel who kept trying to beat Brian’s marks blurts the answer, _“because historically, every time a bearer told someone without being asked, something happened. That’s how Rome fell.”_

Brian rolls his eyes and leans over to the girl, Maggie, he likes to flirt with for fun, “maybe they all just had really bad timing.”

Maggie laughs and ends up snorting. Mrs. Humphreys glares at them but says nothing. Pushing his luck, he continues.

_“Caesar says to Brutus seconds before being stabbed, oh, by the way, we’re soulmates. We can be best friends forever.”_

It earns a chuckle from the other kids around him. Mrs. Humphreys straightens up.

_“Mr. May, something to share with the class?”_

Brian leans back, unabashed by the tone, “ _I was merely creating a thesis that all bearers had a horrible sense in timing.”_

_“Mr. May, you would do well to remember to focus on the facts and not some passing fancy.”_

The facts, Brian thinks, are that when something bad happened people looked for someone to blame.

* * *

His thesis when he was twelve is perhaps the truth. He’s never wanted to spit out the tainted words more than when he’s knocking on death’s door. John is arguing about something with the doctor. It’s about him, he’s sure, and why they haven’t done much besides changing the dressing on his arm and place new IV bags.

Maybe there’s nothing that they could do. Brian wouldn’t blame them if that’s the case, but maybe they should spare his band false hope. Freddie’s finally encouraged Roger to leave and eat something. John’s gone to bat for him with the medical staff again.

He closes his eyes until he feels hands on his face. Brian flutters his eyes open.

**Green.**

John’s elegant beauty is stained by red-rimmed eyes and dark circles. He should set them free.

“Hey, Brimi, how are you feeling?”

The nickname provides more comfort than any medicine could.

“Your labs are looking good, they say in a few more hours they’ll be more confident to operate then they can do a more aggressive treatment. Just think, you stay like this for a few more hours and we can go home soon.”

He leans into the hand stroking his head. That’s what they’ve resulted to bargaining for? A few more hours? The taint, like bile races up his throat. If John is wishing for a few more hours, Brian knows with certainty that his body is failing him.

It’s always been about bad timing with Bearers. Five syllables, that’s all he needs to get out.

“John,” he rasps out he speeds up like he’s going to run out of air, “I’m a Bearer and-”

“No!”

He’s never heard the sharpness from John before. It’s panicked and the hand in his hair tugs slightly on his curls. Brian hadn’t realized his focus waned that much.

“You don’t get to do that,” John says softer but no less panicked.

Brian blinks. There’s water to John’s tone now and all he can think about is the running water over his ribs.

“You don’t get to sound like that.”

“John- what?”

John bows so that his head is in the center of Brian’s chest. His hand drifts down from Brian’s hair to his chest. Brian raises his own, uninjured one, to cover it in a weak grasp. John’s hand flips over and laces their fingers together.

“You don’t get to sound like you’re giving up,” John’s words are barely audible.

Brian blinks long and slow trying to figure out the words and they’re meaning.

“People… people only share their deepest secrets when they know they aren’t going to… make it. You can’t give up, that’s not fair to us.”

Brian wants to say that he isn’t giving up. He’s just accepting what he knows is coming.

“Just hang on for a couple more hours. Please.”

He swallows back the taint and his ribs ache with the secret he can’t share just yet. If John wants him to hold on for a couple more hours for them, that’s something that he can do. It seems that the damage is done.

John’s ear is pressed against his heart and Brian sees the glistening tears. Brian knows that John has known he is a Bearer for years, since a near tragedy in a dressing room. He thinks John has a very good guess as to whose name he has on his chest.

* * *

Brian meets Roger two years into University. At an audition for Smile of all things. His hair was shorter then, flyaway gold, and even before he uttered his name, Brian knows that he’s looking at one of his soulmates.

The small warning given to him by his father rings in his ears, and maybe he would have listened to it if Roger Taylor wasn’t a phenomenal drummer. If their instruments hadn’t blended together in new sounds and their voices tangle in the right way. Had it been anyone but Roger Taylor, Brian might have listened to that warning.

Then again, he supposes that’s the point of soulmates.

Roger becomes a bright counterpoint to his melancholy. The sun he often forgets about in his search among the stars. To Roger, he becomes a stabilizing balance but also a rarely judgmental companion. It doesn’t take long for them to become inseparable between their classes, and Tim starts to joke that it’s not going to be Roger and Brian but RogerandBrian.

The words don’t ache on his side, and he doesn’t feel the need to blurt everything out as he feared. Then Roger gets his first long term girlfriend, and Brian is reminded that while he might know, but Roger could only guess.

Things are still easy between them, they’d never be hard. Brian knows that even without the brands on his side, that he and Roger would forge a bond that lasts for fifty years or more.

Smile fades and drains for a year until Roger introduces him to a Freddie Mercury. Brian feels electricity on his side, where the name that never felt right lies. He knows if he were to look, the name would have changed.

Freddie brings a breath of fresh air in between the fires he starts. He’s as passionate as Roger but far more willing to do the things that hurt. Brian gets the sense that Freddie would never ask for confirmation but wouldn’t shy away from Brian should he blurt it. Freddie likes dangerous things.

Brian might be a little lost between the two of them. Energetic and daylight creatures that they are. The pining turns into exhaustion and he begs for one of them to just ask.

 Freddie asks the silver bullet question one night, _“would you rather know who you’re meant to love, or have it be a surprise?”_

All Brian’s ever known is the names of the men he’s going to love in some way, but he can’t imagine a universe in which he doesn’t love these two (someday three) men. Roger knocks back the rest of his beer.

_“A surprise, knowing has got to be boring.”_

_“Knowing would be painful,”_ Freddie nods, _“I mean, imagine knowing that, and see that person be happy with someone else.”_

Brian nearly sobs. It’s like Freddie knows he lies in bed and thinks about all the girls Roger brings home or all the people Freddie makes fall in love with him for a night. The words sit heavy in the back of his throat, but Tim is out. Freddie is in. They need a bass player and Brian is nearly certain he knows the man’s name.

A year after that, John Deacon stumbles into the audition room. Young and awkward but has a way with the bass that has Roger grinning. They’re going to be the backbone of whatever this great thing will be. Brian’s never lost confidence in the idea that this band will make it. Four soulmates.

It makes him wonder if one of the Beatles was cursed the same way he is.

John is the one he jives with the least. Brian can’t tell if it’s because they’re so similar or if Brian has a quiet sort of resentment budding in his chest. They get along, but there’s always a tension. He toys with the idea that John somehow has his name. It’s impossible because Brian already has his.

Then he realizes that John doesn’t buy into the idea of soulmates. At least not how society has made them into the private thing.

 _“Why should I have to keep quiet when I find the one person that I’m meant to be with? There’s no concrete proof that the bad things are correlated.”_ John says once when he’s well past tipsy.

Brian can’t stop the thought: what if you find the three, you’re meant to be with? He downs the rest of his pint in impressive speed. The beer washes the words away for the first time in his life.

* * *

**Yellow.**

Freddie sitting on the side of his bed isn’t a surprise. The surprise comes from delicate fingers rubbing over his mark. Brian watches through heavy-lidded eyes. Some time must’ve passed because John and Roger are curled up around each other on the couch. Brian feels less aware than he did before.

It’s going to come down to the wire.

He watches Freddie’s gentle beauty and loses himself to the touch. When he gave himself away to Freddie he doesn’t know. Maybe he hadn’t, and like all things Freddie, he just seems to know.

The fingers start dancing as though he’s playing the piano on Brian’s ribs. It’s the longest that Freddie has gone without speaking when they are trying to tug out songs from each other.

“John told me, that you tried to tell your last secret.”

It’s far from his last. In fact, it’s his shortest. Brian wallows the taint around in his mouth and Freddie speaks again.

“I don’t think you’ve given up,” Freddie presses three fingers down like he’s holding a chord, “I think you know how this is going to end.”

Brian nods softly.

Freddie smiles, “you always think you know best, Brimi.”

“Cause I do,” he mumbles.

He closes his eyes and lets Freddie’s laugh wrap around him. It’s warm and bright, and the one where he knows Freddie isn’t covering his mouth. Brian wants to think about a time when there isn’t a waxy complexion or a worn set to Freddie’s shoulders.

“Do you need to tell us, or someone?” Freddie asks.

 _Yes._ He thinks because even if he may be gone, the others would know. It might save them. Heal them a little better.

“Because I’ll hear it if that’s what you need, but I need something in return.”

Brian opens his eyes, “what’s that?”

Freddie is watching him, a mixture of affection and fear swirl in deep brown eyes. Brian could drown in those eyes, would gladly do so if only he had the permission.

“You have to come back to us.”

Brian wants to argue that it’s an impossible promise. Although he supposes he’s made it the hours John requested. It could be that he’s soon to be whisked off to surgery where chances are they won’t be able to save him. Then again, this is Freddie asking something of him. It’s a change from the demands or bargains struck in arguments.

He uses what little strength he still posses to raise Freddie’s palm to his lips and brushes it lightly.

“My words are on my ribs.”

Freddie’s fingers ghost across his face before tangling gently in his hair. He can’t imagine the sight he must make; his hair is probably a tangled mess and he knows his complexion is absolute shit. Still, he gets the impression that Freddie thinks he’s beautiful.

He closes his eyes briefly but opens them when Freddie’s forehead touches his.

“As I breathe, you are with me.”

Aristophanes said that once, in one of his books about philosophy and his discussion of soulmates.

“Endless devotion.”

The current meaning of his placement.

“You certainly got the short end of the stick,” Freddie jokes, “to be bound eternally to someone who may never know.”

They all know. Brian is sure of that on some level. They’re four people who shouldn’t fit together. Sharp edges and hidden wounds, they have personalities worlds apart. Yet. Brian knows, as sure as he knows his own name, that none of them are going to walk away from this.

“Is that it?” Freddie frowns, “is that all you wanted to tell me?”

No.

“I can’t,” he’s swallowed the words so often they’ve grown into his throat.

Freddie nods in understanding. Brian won’t tell them, not directly. It's up to Freddie if he wants to know. The hand that had still been playing a tuneless piano slowly slides to gap in his hospital gown. He wants to close his eyes, there’s cotton to his thoughts. Brian watches Freddie lift the gown.

A sharp gasp catches his attention. He turns his head to see Roger looking at them wide-eyed and more terrified than he’s ever been. Brian sees that the mark is exposed to air. There’s no hiding it or relying on bad light.

“Why?” Roger says he sounds angry.

Brian knows that he’s just scared.

“Freddie why? Now he’s, now it’s.”

Roger moves towards them. He isn’t aggressive, and instead pulls the fabric from Freddie’s hand and covers the mark again. Brian tilts his head. Roger hasn’t read it. Freddie has.

“He promised,” Freddie replies, his fingers back over Brian’s mark.

Brian nods at Roger’s questioning gaze.

“Okay,” Roger breathes, his tone sounds hysterical, “okay, if you promised.”

He looks to John who is still asleep. Exhausted, not that Brian blames him. What’s it mean when one knows, one assumes, and one is in the dark. Is there a balance, or did he thrice damn them?

* * *

It turns out that everything went smoothly. When he wakes up, he hurts which forces a slightly crazed laugh from his lips. Brian doesn’t feel like he’s in that muffled place between life and death.

John, Freddie, and Roger are gathered around his head. He offers them a tired smile. It’s a little apologetic because he never meant for them to hurt so badly because of him. Part of him half expects for Freddie to demand an explanation or a discussion about what this means.

Roger has taken the two minutes he’s been awake to curl up on the bed beside him. Tangled with him, as though sheer force of will can keep him here. He supposes Freddie and John’s begging may have done so because he was ready to fully admit that he wasn’t going to make it through the night.

Freddie’s hand is away from his ribs. Brian knows that he didn’t imagine it. It hurts. This game that he knows they’re going to play. Freddie is going to pretend that he never learned. Roger never saw anything put the placement and John knows about it but not really.

He nearly died and nothing’s changed. Maybe it could be for the best, but between the pain in his arm and liver, he feels the familiar burn on his ribs and the tainted-bile take root in his mouth. Brian doesn’t know how he wanted things to change, but he thought maybe he could get rid of this exhaustion and just enjoy being alive with his soulmates.

Perhaps this is the misfortune his blunder brought them. An unsteady balance of who is going to make the first move. Brian closes his eyes to keep the tears from leaking and thanking the stars that at least nothing’s changed.

Things could be so much worse.

Then again, things could be so much better.   

He damns those five syllables with him.

**Author's Note:**

> I really couldn't do the John part to what I was imagining in my head. Boy I wish I was better at drawing. Anyway. I hope you enjoyed! Leave your thoughts below or actually yell at me @sammyspreadyourwings


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